Bumpy Roads - A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book 11) (The Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery Series) (6 page)

Mary arrived home only moments before the bus pulled up to
the curb.
 
She hurried to the front porch
to greet Clarissa, worried about the way things had gone that morning.
 
After waving to Maggie and her brothers as
they exited the bus and walked toward their house, she turned to watch Clarissa
slowly exit the bus, her head down, and walk toward the house.

“Hello sweetheart,” Mary said. “How was school today?”

“Fine,” Clarissa replied softly.

“I picked up some wonderful things for dinner tonight,” she
continued, trying to make conversation. “I thought it would be lovely to have a
special dinner, just you and me.”

Clarissa froze and looked up at her. “Bradley…I mean, Dad’s
not coming home?” she asked.

Mary shook her head, trying to keep the disappointment from
her face. “No,” she said brightly. “He has to stay and do some extra work at
the office. So, it’s just us girls. Won’t that be fun?”

Sighing loudly, Clarissa nodded. “I have lots of homework,”
she announced. “So, I won’t be in your way.”

“Clarissa,” Mary replied, nearly dumbstruck by Clarissa’s
remark. “You are never in my way. Never think that.”

“Okay,” Clarissa replied meekly. “I won’t.”

She scooted around Mary and made her way into the
house.
 
Hanging her coat in the closet,
she turned to start up the stairs.

“Don’t you want an afterschool treat?” Mary asked.

Halting on the steps, Clarissa turned back. “You don’t have
to bother,” she said.

“Darling, it’s no bother,” Mary answered, moving into the
kitchen and pulling the peanut butter and bread from the cabinet. “I could make
you a sandwich with some milk. How does peanut butter and jelly sound?”

Shaking her head, Clarissa started up the stairs again.
“It’s okay, I can wait until dinner.”

Mary watched her slowly walk up the stairs and waited until
she heard the door close to Clarissa’s bedroom.
 
She pulled out a piece of bread, slathered it liberally with peanut
butter, folded it and took a big bite. “So much for happily ever after,” she
muttered.

“Sorry, I couldn’t understand you,” Mike said from behind
her. “Your mouth was full.”

Startled, Mary jumped and then turned on her friend. “I feel
like I’ve walked away from my life and into an episode of the Twilight Zone,”
she said, taking her frustration out on the sandwich with an angry bite.

“Wow. Remind me to never get close to your choppers when
you’re angry,” he teased.

“It’s just that…” she started. “It’s just that…”

Suddenly, tears began to flow down her cheeks and she felt
overwhelmed.
 
She sank down into the
nearest chair, next to the table, and laid her head in her arms and cried.

“Hey, now, it can’t be that bad,” Mike said, floating over
next to her.

“It is,” she said, her voice muffled by her arms. “It’s
terrible.”

“What’s terrible?” he asked.

“Bradley can’t be home for dinner,” she muttered through the
peanut butter.

Mike leaned closer to hear her. “Bradley can’t be a humdinger?”
Mike asked. “Well, babe, not everyone can be like me.”

She shook her head, “No, he’s not coming home,” she said
emphatically.

“What?
 
When did this
happen?” he exclaimed. “What the…heck? Is he abandoning you and Clarissa?”

Lifting her head, Mary reached for a tissue, blew her nose
and wiped her eyes. “No, he’s not abandoning us,” she said. “He can’t make it
home for dinner.”

Mike exhaled in relief. “Well, if that’s all,” he began.

“All?” Mary exclaimed, slapping her hands against the table.
“Is that all?
 
On our first night
together as a family, for our first real family meal, he decides to work late.”

Mike nodded and sat in a seat across from Mary. “What an
idiot,” he said, agreeing with Mary. “I mean, really, what’s so important about
his job that he can’t come home for dinner? Before you were married he never
had to cancel. Oh, no, he’s just doing this to make you angry.”

She started to agree, but snapped her mouth closed for a
moment. “Okay, yes, his job has always made him late for dinner,” she
confessed.

“Well, yes, maybe,” Mike said. “But if he really wanted to
be here, he’d be here.”

Once again, she tried to agree with him, and then shook her
head. “No, I could tell, even though he was distracted, he wanted to be here.”

“Well, yes, but…” Mike began.

“Mike,” Mary
interrupted,
a wry
smile on her face.

“Yes, Mary,” he replied with a grin.

“I get your point. You can stop now.”

“See I told everyone you weren’t slow,” he chuckled.

She sat back against the kitchen chair and sighed. “It’s
just…it’s just,” she started.

“It’s just not how you pictured it,” Mike inserted.

She turned to him and nodded emphatically. “Yes. Yes, that’s
it exactly,” she agreed. “It’s not how I pictured it.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?” he asked.

“Change the picture I guess,” she decided. “Dinner together
is great, but maybe breakfast would be more realistic.”

“That’s my girl,” he replied.

She nodded and smiled. “I mean, really, there’s no reason to
miss breakfast.”

“It’s the most important meal of the day,” Mike agreed.

“
Thanks,
Mike. Now everything is
going to be perfect.”

Bradley winced when the front door squeaked as he opened it
sometime around midnight that night.
 
He
had followed up on some leads on the missing girl, had spoken at length with
her distraught parents and worked with the local FBI office to fill them in on
the pertinent information.
 
He was
exhausted, but he was also so wound up he knew he wouldn’t be able to fall
asleep right away.
 
He kept seeing the
face of the girl, in many ways she reminded him of Clarissa.
 
His heart broke for her parents because he
couldn’t imagine what he would do if his daughter was missing.

He quietly laid his coat over the back of the closest
chair,
put his gun in the safe in the closet. He was about
to flip open his laptop and work a little longer when he stomach growled and he
realized he hadn’t eaten anything since he had grabbed a quick sandwich at
lunch.

Walking into the kitchen, he wondered if he would have to
settle for peanut butter and jelly.
 
But
when he opened the refrigerator, he found a plate of food already made for him,
with a yellow sticky note that had a heart drawn on it.

Mary
. His burden
suddenly seemed a little lighter. Pulling out the plate, he noticed a tray
filled with white ramekins, the kind Mary used when she made stuffed French
toast. His smile widened.
Being married
is great.

Carrying his food into the living room, he turned his
favorite cable news station on low and flipped open his laptop, sharing his
time between both as he ate his food.
 
The FBI reports on the missing girl were linked to some older cases in
Stephenson County.
 
He clicked on the
oldest one as he bit into the steak sandwich.
 
Courtney Rasmussen
, he mused,
she was one of the first.
 

The agent from the Rockford office had been very helpful,
but Bradley was a little chagrined to discover in the past ten years they had
had an epidemic of missing children cases in the area. He knew their computer software
wasn’t compatible with neighboring towns and with the county, but there had to be
some way they could all share data.

He yawned widely and stretched. Kicking off his shoes, he
decided to just stretch out on the couch for a few minutes, and then he’d have
the energy to go upstairs and get ready for bed.
 
He closed his eyes and the world around him
disappeared.

The room was dark and
Mary was trying to understand why she was there.
 
She moved forward tentatively, trying to find
an exit door or a light.
 
She didn’t feel
afraid, but she knew she didn’t really belong there.
 
A low sound, like the thrum of a bass note,
was pulsing in the background, over some hidden speaker system.
 
Everywhere she went, the sound was present.
She continued forward and she heard another sound, soft and whispered, in the
distance.
The sound of a child’s cry.
 
Dismissing caution, she hurried forward toward
the source of the sound, running down dark corridors that turned and
twisted.
 
Finding herself at a dead end,
she turned back and found a staircase that hadn’t been there before.
 
She jogged up stairs and down stairs, still
following the elusive cry.

The alarm went off at six o’clock. Still half asleep, Mary jumped
up, still searching for the child.
 
Realizing it had only been a dream, she turned, seeking comfort in
Bradley’s arms.
 
But her eyes widened and
she was at full alert when she realized that not only wasn’t he there, but his
side of the bed hadn’t been used the night before.
 
Did
something happen to him at work?
 
Had he
been shot?
 
Surely someone would have
called me!
 
What if my phone wasn’t
working?
 
What if no one knows?
 
What if he had been ambushed on the way home?

Leaping from her bed, her heart in her throat, she grabbed
her robe and rushed out of her room.
 
She
turned too quickly next to the staircase and rammed her toe into the post.
Biting on her lip to keep from yelling in pain, she hobbled down the stairs.

She could hear the soft tones of the news station before she
reached the first floor.
 
The living room
was still dark, but the glow of the television lit it enough for her to see
that Bradley was stretched out on the couch, snoring slightly.
 
She quietly moved closer and saw the remnants
of his meal still on the coffee table in front of him.
 
His clothes were rumpled and his shoes were
laying on the floor right below his feet, as if he had kicked them off at the
last moment.

Really?
She thought.
You couldn’t have just
walked up the stairs and come to bed? Instead you decide to give me a heart
attack the first thing in the morning.

A part of her knew she was being unreasonable.
 
A part of her realized he looked worn
out.
 
A part of her even had sympathy for
the man slumbering on the couch.
 
But
another part of her was still reacting to her initial panic and her throbbing
toe.
 
And that part was really angry.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped away from him.
I’ll just go up, shower and get dressed, and
then I’ll make breakfast.
 
And when he
wakes up, we can talk about our schedules.

No sooner had Mary walked upstairs and closed her bedroom
door than Bradley’s phone began to ring.
 
Groggily, he reached into his pocket and
brought the device to his ear, his eyes still closed. “Alden,” he said roughly
into the mouthpiece.

Slowly his eyes opened and he sat up on the couch. “Yeah,
really?” he said, becoming more alert. “
Don’t
the FBI
ever sleep?”

He rubbed his face with his hand, wiping away the sleep and
then ran it through his hair. “No, hey, it’s not your fault,” he said. “I got a
couple of good hours of sleep. I’m good, really.
 
And the sooner we can get them working on
this case, the better.”

He slowly looked around, saw the television was still on and
the rest of the first floor was empty. “It looks like Mary and Clarissa are
still asleep,” he said. “So, I’ll come in right now, shower at the office and
change into my extra uniform.
 
Yeah, I
can be there in ten minutes, so you can brief me before the seven o’clock
meeting.”

Stretching and trying to work the kinks out of his back, he
finally reached over and slipped his shoes back on his feet.
I probably should leave Mary a note
, he
thought.

He walked over to the desk and picked up a pen when his
phone rang for a second time. “Chief Alden,” he answered, dropping the pen.
“Oh, traffic was better than you thought? Well, isn’t that great.
 
Yeah, sure, we can move the meeting up to six-thirty.
 
No problem. I’m heading in right now.”

Well, crap, it sure
feels like this is going to be one of those days,
he thought as he picked
up his gear and hurried out of the house, closing the door softly behind him.
I’ll just call Mary later, she’ll understand.

Mary heard the click of the door as she exited her bedroom.
No
, she thought, hurrying down the hall
to the stairs,
he wouldn’t just leave
.

Rushing down the stairs, she froze on the bottom step and
looked into the living room. Bradley was no longer stretched out of the bed,
his shoes were no longer on the floor and his coat was no longer on the back of
the chair. She sat down on the steps, put her head in her hands and sighed.
“Well, I guess the honeymoon is now officially over.”

The young girl lifted her head from the bed and gazed around
the small room.
 
Everything around her
seemed fuzzy and her head felt like it was in a fog.
 
Somewhere deep inside of her someone was
screaming for her to run away, but she couldn’t get her body to respond to the
command.
 
A door opened and bright light
entered the dim room.
 
She squinted, but
didn’t look away.

“Well, good morning. You’re finally awake,” the man’s voice
seemed to echo in the room and through her head. “Don’t worry; sooner or later
I’ll get the portion right. I don’t want to give you too little because we
don’t want you running away, do we?
 
And
we don’t want to give you too much because then you could die, and we’re not
ready for that just yet, are we?”

Her hair was yanked and she collapsed against the bed, her
head bent back.
 
She gagged as the
medicine was forced down her throat, and although she tried to move her face,
it was caught in the iron grip of his hand.

“Now swallow it all up,” he said. “That’s a good girl.”

He stroked her hair and her face.
 
“Just relax,” he said. “Just relax and
everything will be just fine.”

She whimpered softly. “Mommy,” she whispered.

“Oh, honey, your mommy can’t help you now,” he said. “You’ve
fallen down into the monster’s lair and there’s nothing anyone can do for you.”

“Please,” she begged.

“Look at the photos on the wall,” he said, pointing to a
collection of framed photographs. “Each of those girls was where you are
now.
 
And each of those girls learned
what happens when you skip school. Then they all graduated.
 
And you’ll graduate too.
 
Once I’m done with you.”

“I don’t want to die,” she pleaded.

“I didn’t say
nothing
about dying,”
he said. “I said you’d graduate, just like you would have if you hadn’t decided
to skip school. But, don’t worry, if you’re nice to me, I’ll let you stay down
here with me for an entire school year.”

He stroked her again. “Now, you just sit back and let that
medicine kick in. Then we’ll play some fun games before I have to go to work.”

He tightened the strap that held her to the bed. “I’m just
going upstairs to get ready, but don’t you worry, I’ll be back.”